Commonwealth new chair

25th July 2017

Joe Connell is the new chairman of the Security Commonwealth. After a meeting in London yesterday, he’s taking over in what organisers term a phased handover from Dave Clark, the chairman of the UK chapter of the security management body ASIS International.

Joe, pictured, has been the chairman of the Association of Security Consultants (ASC) since 2012. A former senior Metropolitan police detective, since retirement he’s worked internationally as a consultant whose risk and intelligence company is Praemunitus.

For those with long memories, the Commonwealth was set up on the same principle as the now defunct JSIC (Joint Security Industry Council), as a group of security groups. It dates from the late 2014 well-attended launch of a ‘Manifesto‘ in London by Emma Shaw when the chair of the Security Institute. Besides the UK and cross-sector bodies already named, others around the table include AUCSO for university security and the Pharmaceutical Industry Security Forum (PISF) that have smaller memberships but cover a single business sector.

While some or even much of the detail of the Manifesto may not have come forth, and while as with any such group there may be an element of a mere ‘talking shop’ – as there was during the life of JSIC – to be a place to talk is partly the very reason for the Commonwealth. Besides the symbolism of a profession whose leading men and women can sit in the same room together, the Commonwealth’s a formal (meeting roughly every six months) gathering of varied UK private security industry figures, who otherwise would meet, if at all, only informally and occasionally.